Finding Work-Life Balance

Innumerable professionals struggle with the daily juggling of act related to balance between their work hours and their home life.  Far too often work trickles into the precious hours that are allocated to family, friends and loved ones.  In an era of hyper connectivity this challenge to find balance is even harder.

Is the solution to throw in the towel and hope that your kids understand your partial attention to their animated review of their day at school whilst you parse through your work email on that tiny 5" screen should be enough to validate them?  No!

Is it acceptable to hide your mobile in the bottom of your attaché and never attend to it outside of business hours?  For some, this is the only way they can truly enjoy their vacations and time off. 

There's no one set solution for how to balance all elements of work and personal lives - but it is a factor that a healthy business person should at least consider and put forth effort to find the mix right for him/her.  This mix has to be comfortable for the professional or it's a wasted effort.

Some will argue that as entrepreneurs they never really can leave the office behind, especially if they work from home - but, where there's a will there is a way.  The home office could be an area of a home that is set apart from common areas shared with the family, regular "office hours" could be set, mobile devices can be set aside and concerted effort made to focus on family during non "office hours." 

Again, everyone's thresh holds and benchmarks for balance will be different.  

It is a continuous process of relearning and refocusing on what matters most and then acting on that.  It is pertinent to understand what imbalance looks like and take the steps to find the mix that is best for you and yours.  

Balance today may not look like what it did last year, or even last week.  Find yours and understand its natural ebbs and flows - for your betterment, that of your family and your career.

attitude is everything?

Instead of actually being a blogger, I feel like a blogging poser for how infrequently I keep after my personal blog.

Of late, it's been work, work and more work. But, that's okay because these Milton Hershey students need my time more than I do. I love a job that puts me in the same space with my hubby, doing something that is worthwhile and we enjoy, for 54 hours straight. What right do I have to complain? As W. Bagebot said, "The essence of work is concentrated energy." We've been concentrating quite a bit and using a lot of energy!

What is work? According to the dictionary, work is exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil. Ooh, that sounds delightful! It's all up to you though. The difference betwixt I want to and I have to is your attitude. Jim Stovall wrote in his book, the Ultimate Gift, "He who loves his work never labors." Even if you don't love what your doing, can you still choose to like it? Can you choose to want to go into the office and give it your best?

Winston said it best, "Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference." Thank you, Mr. Churchill. I'm not saying situations are always rosie and that you should be positive all the time. If unethical, illegal, etc activities are taking place at your place of employment, an "I don't want to be here or involved" stance makes sense! But what about all the other occurrences when its not warranted, but you still have that chip on your shoulder, you procrastinate, or whatever other unpleasant attitude that comes to mind? Are you choosing to look for the good?

I leave you with this closing thought from Francesca Reigler as it nicely packages the point of this post, "Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same."

*disclaimer: this post is as much a self-talk message, as a note to the reading public. I am by no means the positive attitude princess.